January 31, 2012

Good morning!! Today I have Nubar's Jellybeans Collection to show you guys, I picked this up at ISSE and loved it...after swatching it I love it even more. When I got these I thought they were all creme finish, I was wrong! They are all on the verge of being jellies, they are like hybrids! They are more opaque than an average jelly and not as squishy looking once applied but they dry with a really high shine! Click the read more button under the collage for photos and reviews of each shade!

January 30, 2012

Good morning everyone! Hope you all had a fantastic weekend, mine was awesome! I ended up going back to ISSE yesterday...didn't really buy a ton though. I bought one of the Twiddle Stic's from Doll hair care that I mentioned in my big ISSE post and some Nubar polishes for my Mom, those were my big purchases. Other than that I only got 2 Jessica polishes and a couple colors of this awesome hair dye called Color Rub. It's a little tub of bright hair color that you literally rub on your hair and it washes right out. I like the idea of curling my hair and doing the tips teal or some other crazy color. Yesterday ended up being more fun than Saturday, I wandered around for awhile with Michelle from Beauty Besties and watched her get a gel mani at the Orly booth....it's kind of amazing what they can do with gel polish, I had no idea!

Anyway, today I have the Holland Collection from OPI to show you...woohooo!! I've been looking forward to this collection for what seems like forever, good news...it's just as good as I imagined! The shimmers in this collection are perfect and the cremes are gorgeous and apply amazingly...really it's perfect! I'll also have some comparisons up for these in the next couple of days...I know someone will ask so I wanted to mention it in the beginning of the post :)

January 29, 2012

Good morning everyone! If you follow me on twitter you probably saw me tweeting pictures from the ISSE show in Long Beach, CA yesterday. ISSE stands for International Salon & Spa Expo. It was my first time going to this and it was awesome! There was a ton to do and see, a lot of great brands were there representing all kinds of beauty products...nails, hair, makeup etc. I ended up wandering around like a kid in a candy store then I bought a ton of polish. Since ISSE is open only to licensed folks the prices are the same as you would find somewhere like Cosmoprof, which helped me justify buying a ton of stuff. As soon as I walked in the first thing I saw was the Essie booth, I kid you not guys...it was ROWS of nail polish. I've never seen anything like it, I took pictures of most of the nail polish booths that were like this because it was just...wow! I think the only one I missed was Nubar, I was too busy shopping there lol! Hope you guys enjoy the pictures, look for swatches of most of the stuff I bought within the next week or so! I will be a swatching machine lol!

Also...this post is pretty picture heavy so I've put most of it under a cut, click the read more button after the first picture to see everything!

January 27, 2012

Hi guys, just a quick post to announce the winner of the Hits giveaway!! It was Kaitlin D. from Canada! Congrats!

Also, just for fun I decided to see what the overall favorite polishes were in the No Olimpo Collection based on your answers in the giveaway. Check out the little graph below if you are interested in knowing too!

Thank you everyone for entering!

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Happy Friday!! Anyone have fun plans this weekend? I DO!! I'm going the ISSE show in Long Beach this weekend, it's basically a big expo kind of thing with nail & hair and education and whatnot...a lot of the big brands like China Glaze, OPI, Essie, Orly, Nubar etc... will be there. I've never been before but it looks like fun. I'll take as many pictures as I can so I can share the whole thing with you guys! Maybe there will be some fun sneak peeks of collections or something...that would be great!

Today I have Essie's Spring collection, the Navigate Her Collection to show you guys! I found this a couple weeks ago mixed in with the core Essie display at CVS. Hopefully by now it's out on a regular display...good thing there is a fabulous green in here that caught my eye among all those other Essie polishes!

Click the Read More button below the collage for reviews and photos of each shade!

January 26, 2012

Morning! Today I have a special post for you, Katie from Harlow & Co is putting out a special very limited edition trio of polishes very soon and I have some swatches of them today! If you have never heard of Harlow & Co, they are great...they are a Canadian supplier of a lot of awesome brands like Ozotic, Picture Polish, Nubar, Models Own, and Nerd Lacquer and more! Katie from Harlow & Co will be releasing her Sirens Collection which consists of 3 gorgeous polishes on February 1st and it's SUPER LE with only 10 sets! Crazy right...so if you like these you better snatch them up quick once they are on her site!

January 25, 2012

Good morning! Today I have the China Glaze Magnetix Collection to show you guys, I was SO excited about these when I heard about them...I've pretty much been stalking my local beauty supply and they finally got them in so I went over and bought the whole collection along with the magnet! Unfortunately, I am a bit disappointed by these, I'll elaborate more in the review after the cut but basically the magnet was hard to use and didn't work very well. The photos make these look SO much better than they actually were in real life :(

For full reviews of each shade click the read more button below the collage.

January 24, 2012

Good morning! Today I have another awesome Lynnderella polish to show you guys. Before I understood the hype over these polishes this was the one polish I needed, black and white glitter...yes please! This polish was SO hard for me to get, I finally managed to snag it on my 3rd try from Llarowe...every other time before that it was sold out before I could get to it!

Connect The Dots is a mixture of black and white glitter of all sizes and shapes in a clear base with a very subtle shimmer...you can't see that shimmer in this combo but I promise, it's there! I've had Connect the Dots sitting on my desk staring at me for like a week and I couldn't decide what to layer it over. Then last night I put on Essie Tour De Finance (proper swatch of that coming up this week!). As soon as I put the Essie on it was like Connect the Dots screamed "layer me over it"....so I did. It's awesome! Pink, black and white is one of my favorite color combos! I actually like this combo so much that I'm wearing it on all 10 fingers LOL! It's a very very rare thing that I have the same polish on both hands...when it happens you know I love something haha!

I used 2 coats of Lynnderella Connect The Dots over Essie Tour De Finanace for the photos below!

Lynnderella polishes will be exclusively sold on shop.llarowe.com from now on, you need to sign up for her newsletter to be able to order and be notified of when the polishes will be for sale. Please check out Llarowe's shop for complete details on how the ordering will be taking place, there is a big paragraph about it right on the home page of her website!

January 23, 2012

Hi guys! I have an awesome giveaway for you! You all remember my Speciallitá Hits No Olimpo Collection Swatches! post right?!? It was pretty epic if you like holos! Well today I have a giveaway from the awesome people at Speciallitá for the ENTIRE No Olimpo collection!

* Please enter using the Rafflecopter Widget at the bottom of this post. Entries left in the comments will not be counted.

* This giveaway is open internationally (for most countries). Please note the prize is shipping directly from Brazil so it might take a little while to reach you. Unfotunrately some countries have restrictions on nail polish. I have included a list of those countries below. If you live in any these countries then the polishes won't be able to be mailed to you. I'm so sorry about that :(

* Giveaway ends at 12:01am Eastern Standard Time on January 27th 2012...yep guys, it's a short one!

* Winner has 24 hours to respond to my email that they have won the giveaway, if no response is received a new winner will be chosen.

Also, I just wanted to mention that you DO NOT need a Facebook account to use the Rafflecopter widget. There is a little link under where it says "Log in w/Facebook" that allows you to enter with just your email address. I had a few confused people last time and wanted to make sure to point that out :)

Good morning everyone! Happy Monday? ehh I haven't decided if I'm happy about it being Monday yet, I'd be completely content with it always being Saturday or Sunday lol! Today I have a couple Ludurana flakies to show you guys! They are both good alternatives to the Finger Paints flakies that are pretty much impossible for a lot of people to find!

First up is Arco-Iris, which is a multicolored flakie in a clear base. This flashes a ton of colors, blue, green, purple, yellow, orange and more! If you liked Finger Paints Twisted and couldn't get it this one is a great replacement for it! I used 1 coat of Arco-Iris over Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Black Out for the photos below.

Trovao is turquoise and green flakies in a clear base! It's kind of in the middle of what Finger Paints Motley & Flecked were, it's not as bright as Flecked and not a purple toned as Motley. The flakies were a little sparse in this one I ended up using 2 coats over Harlow & Co bad atmosphere (I'll have swatches of that on it's own soon!)

Ludurana flakies are available on shop.llarowe.com they are $7 each. The bottles aren't as big as something like Finger Paints but they are a whole heck of a lot easier to find and Llarowe ships internationally!

January 21, 2012

Good Morning!! Happy weekend, anyone have fun plans? It's supposed to rain here so that means getting cozy and watching movies! Today I have 4 magnetic polishes to show you guys!! I LOVE magnetic polish and they are quickly becoming easier to find and more affordable! I picked up the 4 I'm showing you today at Icing, for those that have never heard of Icing they sell cheap accessories along with some make up and great polishes! These are brand spanking new and I pretty much stalked the store closest to me waiting for them to get their shipment in lol!

These are pretty much full of win and easily my favorite magnetic polishes that have come out so far!

January 20, 2012

Good morning! Sorry for the later than usual post today. This week has been super stressful at work and I literally came home and passed the heck out yesterday so I didn't have a chance to write this post ahead of time! Anyway...today I have another Lynnderella polish to show you guys! Snow Angel was the 1 Lynnderella that was on my list since the very first time I saw it. It's a mix of white square, hex and small glitter in a frosty white base. It's SO pretty, I wish I would have had this for Christmas time! I'm not sure that you could get this opaque on it's own..I'm not about to try lol! I used 1 coat of Snow Angel over Essie Marshmallow for the photos below.

This combo is a bit tricky to photograph since the glitter is so subtle, it's seriously amazing in person!

As far as availability goes, these are a bit hard to come by. Lynnderella has a blog here that she sells her polishes on every once in a while. It's only open for a very short amount of time and those times are few and far between. I know she is supposed have her polishes up for sale again soon but I'm not sure exactly when that will be. You can also buy Lynnderella polishes on Llarowe but they are all sold out right now, I believe she is due to get more sometime in early February!

January 19, 2012

Good morning everyone! Today I have the SpaRitual's gorgeous Water Collection for Spring 2012 to show you guys! Not only are the polishes in this collection gorgeous but 20% of the proceeds from the collection are going to a great charity called Surge. Surge is a non-profit organization that improves access to clean, safe water for communities across the world. I think what they do is pretty amazing, a lot of us (myself included) take things like easy access to something as simple as water for granted. It was eye opening to read through the Surge website about the struggles that people go through. If you'd like to find out more about Surge you can check out their website here! Not gonna lie, I was tearing up a little reading some of the stories they are talking about and the facts they are telling us on the Our Work page.

Click the read more button under the collage for photos and reviews of each shade!

January 17, 2012

Good morning! Today I have a Kat Von D nail polish to show you guys, these are brand new to Sephora! I saw them on their website a week or so ago and immediately bought a bottle of Mad Max! Those little color blobs on Sephora's website draw me in every time, even though most of the time they are horribly color inaccurate (the blob for this one is kinda okay actually, go figure!)

Mad Max is a blue to purple duochrome shimmer. It looked like it would be a 3 or 4 coater on it's own so I ended up using 1 coat over SpaRitual Undercurrent when I wore this mani. Undercurrent is a really gorgeous cobalt blue...I'll have swatches of it up later this week! I think putting it over a darker shade really ended up being the best decision, the duochrome on it's own was a bit hidden but over the darker base it really came out to play! It was SO obvious in person but so hard to capture on camera for some reason :( Sorry about the minor tip wear in these photos, I took the photos after almost 2 days of wear!

Just because I know someone will ask...the bottle I'm holding in the last 2 pictures is a Color Club base coat. The Kat Von D bottle is super cute...but kind of a pain in the butt to hold and get good pictures of my nails with :)

this photo was in the shadiest spot I could find, apparently my camera could only capture the purple in that awful light...wtf camera!

this photo is in "normal" shade

this photo is in indirect sunlight! so pretty!

I really do love this polish but it's very small, .25 oz...aka half the size of a full sized OPI or China Glaze. For the amount of polish you get I think the $12 price tag is a bit ridiculous. While this is very pretty I really doubt I'll be buying another Kat Von D polish unless the price goes down or the bottle size goes up.

The Kat Von D High Voltage Lacquers are available exclusively from Sephora. I bought mine online at Sephora.com, it was $12...I'm not sure if these are in actual Sephora stores yet!

January 16, 2012

Good morning! Hope you all had a good weekend! Mine was pretty lazy, crappy weather Saturday then it rained most of Sunday so I did a little shopping and not much else haha! I finally managed to find the Essie Go Overboard Collection for Spring. I hear that people have been finding it for a while at Target but none of the ones by me have it out yet...I finally came across it at Walgreens and then only ended up buying the polish I'm showing you today. The Go Overboard Collection is 3 new polishes and 3 repromotes, the other 2 new polishes looked a little boring in person...I might go back for them eventually though.

Armed and Ready is a dark brown toned grey with a coppery shimmer. The shimmer in this is pretty hidden but out in the sun it's super gorgeous! The shimmer has a little bit of copper, red and gold! Inside and in low light the shimmer is pretty much non-existent...I could barely even seen it in the bottle in the store! I definitely don't have anything like this polish and I'm such a lover of hidden shimmer that even if I did have a dupe I don't think I'd mind haha! The formula was really nice, I used 2 coats for the photos below.

The Go Overboard Collection from Essie should be in stores now or very soon, I know people have found it at Target, Walmart and Walgreens, it retails for around $8 depending on where you buy it. I also came across a bottle of Armed and Ready (but not the other 2 new shades) at CVS mixed in with the core display of polishes...not sure why it was like that, maybe they aren't supposed to be out there yet or something. Anyway, I hope you can find this if you like it!

January 13, 2012

TGIF! Happy Friday The 13th! Today I have a couple swatches that I've been meaning to post and just haven't gotten around to! BB Couture is a brand I really love but don't actually have a lot of...they make some of the most gorgeous glitters and shimmers that I own!

Junk In The Trunk is a bright cornflower blue with a strong silvery blue shimmer. Let's face it, I mostly got this one for the name but it's actually one of the most gorgeous blues I have in my stash! The formula was great, 2 coats for full opacity!

Feathered Vixen is a very dusty purple with a subtle shimmer. It reminds me a bit of Zoya Lotus that I posted earlier this week..just with different shimmer. Formula wise it was also great, 2 coats for full opacity!

BB Couture is available on their website bbnailpolish.com and overallbeauty.com. I don't see these on Overall Beauty anymore but when I looked at the BB Couture website last night they were still for sale there, for $8.95 a piece!

January 12, 2012

Good morning!! Today I have my very first Lynnderella polish EVER to show you guys, if you read nail blogs I know you've heard of these beauties before. Until I bought this polish and put it on I really did not get the hype over Lynnderella polishes....happy to say I get it now (my wallet is not happy about this though). For my first ever Lynnderella's I got the one I'm showing you today, Bibbitty Bobbitty Boo Blue, and Snow Angel which I haven't worn yet. Since then I've bought 4 more that I'm waiting for...they are like crack...I need more.

Bibbitty Bobbitty Boo Blue is described by Lynnderella as "glitter in all shades of blue: turquoise, navy, royal, periwinkle along with blue-violet and violet. Squares, hexagons and micro-glitter in a luscious cornflower blue base". I'm sure you could get this opaque on it's own if you wanted to, but removing that frightened me so I layered it. I used 1 coat of Bibbitty Bobbitty Boo Blue over Revlon Royal for the photos below.

Shade

Shade

Shade

I'm not huge fan of how this looked in the sun but I figure some of you would like to see how it looks anyway :)

Sun

As far as availability goes, these are a bit hard to come by. Lynnderella has a blog here that she sells her polishes on every once in a while. It's only open for a very short amount of time and those times are few and far between. I know she is supposed have her polishes up for sale again soon but I'm not sure exactly when that will be. You can also buy Lynnderella polishes on Llarowe but they are all sold out right now and apparently it's going to be a while before she re-stocks also :(

January 11, 2012

Good morning everyone, happy Wednesday! Today I have an awesome glitter-tastic post for you guys! I know some of you have been looking forward to it since I was teasing you with photos of these on twitter over the weekend! Nerd Lacquer is a a brand that has been available on etsy for a little while, I've been over on their shop drooling over the awesome glitters for a while. Now they are also being stocked at one my favorite new etailers, Harlow & Co! I am so excited to finally have some of these and be able to share them with you guys, I hope you like them as much as I do! I have swatches of 7 of them for you and the awesome Kirsten from Glitta Gloves has another 6 on her blog today...you can check those out there at GlittaGloves.com! Also...Harlow & Co have teamed up with Nerd Lacquer for a giveaway for a mini-quad of Nerd Lacquer polishes, I have the link to that at the very bottom of the post! Whew, that was a lot of intro haha, this post is very photo heavy...I couldn't help it, they deserve a million pictures! Photos and reviews of each shade are under the cut!

January 10, 2012

Morning! Today I have the second Zoya Spring Collection to show you, The Fleck Effect Collection! More flakies!! It's so funny that a couple months ago flakies were a bit hard to come by...there weren't too many available options. Now they are all over the place, I love it! Zoya has brought us 3 more that are in tinted bases and perfect for layering over everything! I have these over a ton of colors after the jump!

Click the read more button for layering options and reviews of each shade!

January 9, 2012

Good Morning!! Today I have an awesome new collection to show you guys from Zoya! Zoya is giving us 2 collections for Spring and they are both pretty awesome! They go on sale tomorrow (January 10th) so I thought this would be the perfect time to post them! I'll have the second collection (The Fleck Effect Collection) for you guys tomorrow morning! When I got this collection in the mail I swooned, you guys know that I am a big huge fan of polishes with a gorgeous subtle shimmer and there are a few like this in this collection! This year I've decided to keep a running list of favorites as I swatch and wear stuff so that I'm not scrambling at the end of the year to remember what I've loved....half of this collection is already on that list lol! I really can't wait to see what Zoya has in store for us for the rest of the year if this is how they are starting off!

January 7, 2012

Happy weekend everyone! Short post today since I'm literally running out the door in like 5 minutes for the day! Today I have another Ludurana polish to show you, it's one of their pretty holographic ones! Esplendido is a silver holo, the holo isn't super linear...it's more scattered. It reminds me a bit of of Kaleidoscope Collection from China Glaze. The formula was good, a little thick but easy to work with! I used 3 coats of Esplendido for the photos below!

January 6, 2012

Happy Friday! Anyone have fun plans this weekend? I have a whole bunch of awesome polishes to swatch that you guys will see next week. I'm also planning on going outlet shopping, I was going to last weekend but since I pretty much slept through Saturday it didn't happen lol!

Today I have my first Ludurana polish to show you, Ludurana is another great Brazilian brand that is more accessible to us thanks to Leah Ann from Llarowe! Facinante is an awesome multichrome that flashes dark red, orange, gold, and green. I am such a multichrome lover, this one is fantastic! It's opaque enough to wear on it's own but it also looks awesome over black! The formula was good, a little thick but easy to work with. I used 3 coats of Fascinante on it's own for the first 3 photos and 1 coat over black for the last photo.

Sun

Ludurana is available on shop.llarowe.com, the multichromes are $14 each. They also make great flakies and holos! I love Brazilian polish!

January 5, 2012

Morning! Today I have some more awesome flakies from Hits to show you! I really love pretty much everything I've tried from Hits, I'm so happy that the brand is more accessible to everyone now!

Fox Trot is orange/gold/green flakies in a purple jelly base. The flakies in this one remind me of the flakies in Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure (the good version), Essie Shine of The Times, Nubar 2010 etc... I think the purple base is what really makes this special! It's gorgeous! This is opaque on it's own, you could layer it if you wanted too but the base is a bit opaque so it might not be best for that. I used 3 coats of Fox Trot for the photos below.

p.s. the whole time I've been writing this post I've been singing the chorus of Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo by the Bloodhound Gang haha! That song is so awful but it always makes me laugh.

Can you imagine if our nails were this big...that would be crazy! I bet our nail polish bottles would be HUGE

Salsa is orangey gold flakies in a rosy pink jelly base. The flakies in this one weren't as exciting as the others I've tried from Hits but the way this looked was so soft and gorgeous. I feel like I could probably wear this one if I for some reason needed a work safe color and it wouldn't be too over the top. The pink in this had a tendency to look very different depending on the shadiness of the area I was in so I put in a couple pictures so you can see the difference! Most of the time it looked like the first picture but every now and then it got a bit more vibrant like how the second picture looks! I used 3 coats of Salsa for the photos below!

Hits Flakies are available at shop.llarowe.com they are $8 each, she ships everywhere except for Italy so they are accessible for pretty much everyone!! yay!